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VBS.tv (aka Vice TV) has posted its five-part documentary on Gorgoroth. It’s short, about half an hour total. Photographer Peter Beste is involved, which no doubt aided this rare, intimate look at singer Gaahl. Ignore the silly TV/PS3 interface, and check it out:
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Thanks to reader Jess for pointing this out.
Photo by Alexander Langsholt.
part 2 links to part 3
I’ve tested all the links, and they work fine. Let me know if they truly don’t work, though.
I watched the whole thing. A few of the situations are interesting.
Pussy ass journalist guy: it’s a mountain. It’s in norway. It’s not very far. Walk, you won’t die. Fuckin’ crybaby.
Gaahl takes them to a very special place for him, and they complain about it not being about ‘Heavy Metal’ while it’s totally Heavy Metal. It’s the house that his grandparents built, walking every single piece of wood there. This is metal. He’s trying to teach them something and they’re being annoying pricks with their cameras and the dude you’d think only learned to breathe yesterday.
He goes on and on about how there’s so many sheep in the black metal circle, so many people wanting to be led and not to lead themselves, who don’t get the spiritual or philosophical component of the music (which is a different debate) and then they ask him bullshit questions like “how does it feel to be elite?”
They understood nothing. So he tells them, you understood nothing.
And they say
“guide me”.
The silence is deafening. I don’t know Gaahl, I don’t like his music, I am neither afraid of him or fond of him, but I think that pause is a very sad situation for him and I feel empathy. They don’t like him. They don’t understand him. They don’t care to understand him. They’re making a ‘documentary’ for which he’s the subject, and therefore useful. Oh look dude, total amazing cinema right there, that minute-long pause?
Quite dehumanizing. He was totally used. Shame.
I agree with you completely except for the last part – I think they do like him. In fact, they’re so in his thrall that they become the black metal sheep he despises – hence the “Guide me.” I think they just don’t get it.
Any news medium “uses” its subject for content – the more important thing is whether the medium tries to understand the subject. I think there was an attempt here, but at least on the part of that one commentator, it failed.
Who’s using who here? The best business decision that Gaahl ever made was convincing the world that he’s insane. Sound familiar? “Most evil person alive?” Come on.
Gorgorth’s music is fantastic, but let’s all get a grip shall we? Ultimately, we’re talking about an art form making a critique of society (although I don’t doubt Gaahl’s sincerity).
I find Gorgoroth deathly boring. This is the most interesting thing out of the Gorgoroth camp for me. He doesn’t seem at all insane.
I don’t understand your last paragraph, after ’shall we?’. What about the music that makes a critique of society, and what about Gaahl’s sincerity?
1) Obviously, black metal insults, seeks to destroy, etc., etc., Christianity. I see that ultimately as social crticism, particularly in Norway’s cultural context.
2) Gaahl certainly seems to be sincere in his Satanic beliefs, but I also detect more than a hint of shrewd business calculation in the band’s antics.
I was floored by that shit when I watched it awhile back. That pause is absolutely crushing. I can’t believe everyone else in the room just fucking sat there and said NOTHING.
But all the stuff about his history and just the remoteness of his family’s village… totally insane. That dude’s the real deal.
I don’t know. I know Gorgoroth is reputed to be truly into what they’re about, but I keep thinking about Alice Cooper talking about his trip to Norway and all the black metal bands he saw in the paper he was reading en route were at the airport to see him arrive and he questioned the majority of their validity. The whole thing is a strange dark path that I completely understand the true practitioners don’t want to discuss; it’s true, you get it or you don’t, and if you don’t, you’re probably better off
i like his paintings. They’re honest.
I can’t believe how ignorant some of the journalists were. Insulting the man to his face about his home, his personality, his beliefs and the things that are special to him, and then publishing it as a “documentary” isn’t only poor filmmaking, it’s incredible rude and ironic.